India’s men’s doubles pairs of Harmeet Desai-Manav Thakkar and Sharath Kamal-G Sathiyan won bronze medals at the Asian Table Tennis Championships on Monday after losing their semi-final matches in Doha.

Desai and Thakkar entered the semi-final clash in good form, having beaten top seeds Noshad Alamiyan and Nima Alamian of Iran in the quarter-finals in straight games.

The Indians lost the first two games in the semis against Jang Woojin and Lim Johnghoon, but they showed great determination to win the next two and take the match to a decider. They had their chances in the fifth and last game but the Koreans held their nerves and bounced back to notch up a 11-4, 11-6, 10-12, 9-11, 11-8 victory.

In the second semi-final, Sharath and Sathiyan lost 5-11, 9-11, 11-13 to second seeds Yukiya Uda and Shunsuke Togami of Japan.

Sharath and Sathiyan started slowly but upped their game as the match went on. The second game was close and the Indians showed grit to save four match points in the third game, but the Japanese pair did well to not succumb under pressure and close out the match.